


war of hearts

by perennial



Category: Aschenputtel | Cinderella (Fairy Tale), Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: (with the wrong person), Canon Divergence, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Falling In Love, Older Man/Younger Woman, engagement of convenience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 13:37:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14935286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial/pseuds/perennial
Summary: She dances and doesn't lose a shoe. The clock strikes and she doesn't run away. Her future is secured well before midnight—or so she believes.





	war of hearts

**Author's Note:**

> [ruelle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_3L7SRH5C4)

She has until midnight.

Hundreds of shining candleflames light the ballroom like living diamonds. The marble floor reflects the blurred colors of the dancers who spin across its surface. The walls are painted gold; the dark blue ceiling is covered in titanium dioxide constellations, as though the roof has been opened to the spring night.

He is much like this room of his: white-coated, fringed in gold, his dark hair falling over an alabaster forehead. His blue eyes have been fixed on her since she was announced at the head of the stairs. He asks for dance after dance, until he stops asking altogether; it is clear he will dance with no one else tonight. His minutes are hers. The place at his side is hers.

He leads her out into the lantern-lit hedge maze and tells her everything he has ever done or thought or wanted. When they reach the heart, where a fountain cascades golden water into dark depthless pools, he tells her that his future, should she wish it, is hers as well.

The great distant belltower calls out eleven o'clock.

He stops the orchestra in the middle of a waltz. The dancers slow to a halt, looking around as though shaken awake. A low hum of confusion fills the ballroom.

He is flushed, thrilled, exuberant. He presents her to the guests with all the gusto of a trophy recipient in the winner's circle. Her smile is white and her manner gracious and she thanks the well-wishers with a voice that is low and lovely. It is her first test in handling the onslaught of attention this new life holds. She's a natural, he tells her, they'll love her, they already do, of course they do.

She must meet his father, and her stomach roils because if anyone will try to put a stop to this it will be his father who fights them first. He must have had the same thought, to announce it to the hall before performing this most important introduction. The will of the people is backing them now; if divested of their new fixation the displeasure of the masses will be great.

She slips her hand into the crook of his arm. They approach the dais, where some higher-ranking nobles are milling about in small groups, wearing expressions that range from curious to calculating.

He bows, she curtseys, and he takes her hand to draw her up in front of him as he presents her. She steps forward to meet the king, who stands in front of his throne, waiting.

When their eyes meet it is as though a light buried deep inside her has been turned on.

:::

How goes the expression?  
Out of the fireplace, into the inferno?  
That's the one.

:::

The king's eyes are brown and his hair is curling copper-gold. Her children will be a copy of the late queen, if the portrait hall is anything to go by, unless—as is the prince's repeated wish—they inherit her own dark eyes and pale brown complexion, the brushing of freckles on her nose included. She suggests it's a bit early to be thinking about children anyhow, isn't it? and quickly learns that it is never too early where royal lineage is concerned.

Suppers are communal affairs: the court gathers at one long banqueting table, with the royal family in the center and the others on seat rotation from one night to the next. Her permanent place is beside her fiancé, with the king on the prince's other side.

She can see his hands and forearms: gesturing, spearing food, reaching for a cup. He favors his left hand. He likes smoked venison; he leaves olives on the side of his plate. His fingers are lean and long; their only adornment is a signet ring. There is an indent in his wrists at the base of each thumb. Sometimes his son will lean forward to speak to someone further down the table and he will glance at her in the few inches of space that have opened in the gap between the prince's back and the chair.

His manner is serious and steady but from time to time his humor flashes out in a way that makes it easy to see why his court adores him. He listens more than he speaks, and when he does it is with a voice that is pleasantly hoarse and always polite. He says her name once a day, paired with the prince's when he greets them before supper.

The prince can feel the speed of her heartbeat through their linked arms as they enter the dining hall. He tries to allay her nervousness: he assures and then reassures her that the court is delighted by her, that they hang on her every word and are mesmerized by her every movement, that she will find it difficult to lose their love.

From the way they follow him with their eyes she judges at least half the women to be in love with the prince, but they never show her any malice. They look at her with welcoming eyes and friendly smiles; they greet her with their hearts in their hands, ready to give them to her. She deliberately does not speak beyond what social niceties require; the others think her shy. They seek to draw her out. She fields their questions, straight-backed, serene. She repeats what she told the prince: her father was a nobleman from the northern province; since his death some years before, she has been abroad, traveling with her godmother. Her audience is eager to know her favorite sights, and she lists all the famous ones, and they are thrilled to agree with her.

She will spend the rest of her life lying to them and the knowledge makes her sick, but her smile never breaks. It is easy enough to be swept along by them, to let them paint her mask and dress her with adjectives. She wonders: a decade from now, how much of her will be herself and how much will be their creation?

They are stunned to discover she is eight years older than her fiancé but the prince only laughs. He smiles at her and says he doesn't mind if she doesn't, he didn't want a chit of a girl for a wife, though he is rather relieved that she is closer in age to him than to his father.

Then he catches her chin with his hand and she closes her eyes tight and he kisses her warmly as the court and the king look on.

:::

She sits in the sunshine for hours. She hears the royal orchestra perform. She goes to the theater, sometimes twice in a week. She takes long rides through the pine-choked foothills on a horse she's told is for her use alone. She does not pour a single cup of tea.

The prince drowns her in silk and satin and lace, in gemstones and pearls and gold, in tiaras and perfumes and ribbons and shoes and fans and hats. A passing remark expressing admiration of another noblewoman's skill with a paintbrush sees canvases, an easel, and a rainbow of paint tubes appear in her suite, alongside a master tutor. She expresses her enjoyment of a pastry from a local bakery and he has a basket delivered to her breakfast table every morning. She mentions her rarely-indulged love of swimming and he shuts down the palace's lake cove access once a day for her express use.

The maids scold her when they catch her mending a tear in a sash or sewing on a button that has come loose. Her dresses are too complex for her to fasten on her own, so she requires their help when dressing, but they don't like her drawing her own bath, either, or braiding her own hair, or pulling back the bedclothes. Whenever they catch her at task that is not one of leisure, they cluck and take things out of her hands. She lets them because they saw the state of her fingernails on the night of her engagement and they said nothing.

Doors open as she approaches. Her meals are placed before her, already arranged on her plate. Fires are lit and burning merrily before she even enters a room, logs added if she so much as shivers, every hearth always swept clean of ash.

:::

The king holds her chair out for her; she knows exactly where the cloth of his sleeve is in relation to her arm.

He enters the garden amid a cloud of courtiers and her whole body thrums with awareness: he is near.

They stand at opposite ends of the salon. She looks his way as little as possible for fear of what will shine out of her face and alert the ever-present watching eyes, but she always knows where he is without having to look.

They pass each other in the corridor and she lingers in the breeze stirred up in his wake.

At the height of the clamor of supper conversation she can pick out every note of his voice.

He bids her good evening with a kind smile and shuttered eyes. She is a perfect mirror.

:::

He sits to her left at the small card table. A round has just ended; the victorious prince sits with his spoils gathered to him on the side of the table across from them.

Murmurs rise from the other tables; in the massive parlor fireplace, the fire snaps and cracks to the accompaniment of the shish of paper against paper and the smack of hands on the wood tabletops.

"He may beat us in play but never in beauty," the king tells her. "We shall focus on our positives. You have better freckles than he's ever had. And I have a better cravat tan line."

Her laugh rings out over the card table: surprised, delighted, involuntary.

 _Danger. Not allowed._ Her mask snaps back on. The prince, still tallying his win of the previous round, does not notice.

She owns, "I am not in the habit of wearing hats."

He says, "I know."

His gaze holds hers; and for long, brief seconds she is the focus of his undivided attention. He smiles and lines thread out from eyes that are warmer than the candlelight that catches in them. His son calls his attention back to the game. She is glowing through her body all the way to her trembling fingertips.

The king shuffles the discard pile. The firelight dances over his sure fingers; glances off his signet ring; leaves pools of shadows in the indents at his wrists. He deals everyone two cards. She is careful to not pick hers up until her fingers are steady once more.

:::

She extends her arms and holds them in place. Rustling, whispering fabrics are held up to her body, removed, pinned, cut, twisted, marked. The tailors bite needles and loop numbered tape around their necks. Sunlight streams across the parquet and turns the ivory cloth blinding white.

Footsteps in the corridor. The king appears outside the doorway, sheaves of paper in his hand and guards at his back. She and he look at each other, perfectly neutral.

He carries on.

:::

Sunshine falls into the grove, cutting past the dense array of leaves to drench the grass in golden light. Trees of all varieties are present: sycamores, aspens, lindens, magnolias, flowering dogwoods, white oaks, silver birch, poplars, blue spruce. Some are short, squat clouds of leaves and blooming buds; others soar toward the sky, towering above their neighbors and filling the canopy top with their greenery.

Three figures stand in a glen in the middle of the grove and look down at their feet, where it looks like someone has stuck a fern stalk into a cowpat.

The king tells her it is a honey-locust sapling. "Whenever there is an addition to our family, whether by birth or marriage, a tree is planted in this grove."

"Who chose the tree?" she asks.

"I did," says he.

Her attention is claimed by the prince, who has already apologized for her required presence at an occasion of no significance and begged her to humor his father's sentimentality. He takes her hand and leads her to a red alder, tall as a palace column but still dwarfed by the trees surrounding it. She makes admiring sounds.

He points out a black cherry: his mother's; and a yellow pine: his father's. "An interesting combination," she says, and his caustic reply is that such is the way of arranged marriages.

She goes back to her sapling and studies it. There are tiny green leaves on it no bigger than a fingernail. She cannot recall ever having seen a honey-locust tree, or knowing it for what it was if she has. The king uses the surrounding flora to paint a mental image of how it will look when full grown: it will be as tall as that one, its bark will be ridgy like this one, its leaves will be shaped like so.

"They're sturdy, adaptable. They flower in the spring. Long thorns grow on their branches," he tells her, "and their leaves cast a lovely shadow."

She fights to stay expressionless. Thanks seems too small a word.

"Who planted it?" she asks, wondering how one might be so fortunate as to spend every day looking after trees.

"I did."

"They let you?" she is surprised into saying. Her senses scream a warning. Another slip. He is going to make her give herself away and he isn't even trying. He only grins, broad and bright as the sky.

The prince asks if they are finished here.

The next week her fiancé gives her a garden, a block of palace earth crammed full of fat pink peonies, towering irises in every shade imaginable, low-lying bellflowers and pansies, bright tulips and daffodils, daisies and chamomile, asters, dahlias. Bulbs are simultaneously grown in the palace greenhouses; whenever flowers in the garden stop blooming, they are switched out for replacements.

He describes his vision of her: painting, reading, and picnicking, surrounded by blooming color, her beauty emphasised by that surrounding her. She does not have the heart to tell him that she is allergic to the majority of this gift, that for her to enjoy most of the flowers in the garden the stamens must be cut out and the pollen shaken free; so she appreciates it from a distance and, when she cannot avoid walking in it, is careful to wear a hat with a veil. She knows she won't have long to wait before he has a new gift for her; he will forget about the garden soon enough. She wonders how long it will take for her to become old news, too.

She visits her sapling regularly, but though it shows signs of careful tending, she never sees the king.

:::

There are eyes on her at all times. Courtiers. Attendants. Guards. Visiting nobility. The prince.

Moments of solitude can be found if she has the mindfulness to notice them. They are wrested out of the seconds between her occupied minutes. She wrings them from the empty air.

She sits behind him during a play that she hardly watches. In the darkness her eyes are safe to drift over the curve of his ear, the short hair at the base of his neck, the set of his shoulders. The rows are so narrow and the seats so close that she can see his steady inhalation and exhalation. She can hear when he laughs or when his breath catches.

He turns and his eyes brush over hers, light and quick as a butterfly.

:::

She slides out from under her sheets with barely a rustle. The silhouettes of the trees outside are black against the gray sky. The birds have just begun chirping.

She pulls on a robe and soft shoes. She opens the bedroom door with practiced silence and slips outside, closing it behind her soundlessly, leaving her sleeping maids none the wiser.

The maze of the palace is gradually transforming into a set of familiar pathways. She can find her way unassisted to the kitchens, the stables, the reflection pool, and the greenhouses. She must be crafty; as she gets better at navigating the palace, her attendants get better at guessing her hiding places.

Today she chooses the library. She lights a fire in one of the small fireplaces and curls up with her book beside an enormous window. From time to time she looks up to track the progress of the gradually lightening sky. The aviary, music room, and portrait hall are between here and her chambers, and she is buried in a corner she has not used before; it will take her attendants an hour or more to find her. They will drag her back to her chambers as the sun clears the horizon.

Movement on the other side of the glass catches on the edge of her vision. Someone is in the garden below, and despite the meager light, she identifies him immediately: only one person walks in such a way.

She watches the king bend to examine a bed of mint, clip things off bushes that are still dark and unidentifiable in this light, tug leaves off of small trees.

He glances toward the window and his gaze falls on her. His eyebrows lift. She realizes he can see her thanks to the firelight, and lifts her finger to her lips.

He smiles and bows his head to indicate commiseration. They continue on, him tending the garden, her with her book, though her eyes frequently stray his way. The world slowly turns visible.

They find her thirty minutes later. When she arrives back in her suite, a basket of strawberries is there to welcome her.

:::

Golden Day, as every child in the country knows, is the day when the red knights overthrew the grey king and released thousands of slaves and innocent prisoners. Every year remembrance celebrations sweep through the land, and nowhere celebrates as enthusiastically as the capital city.

The parade of dancers, soldiers, and artisans pass down the long crowded king's highway to the central city plaza, above which the royal family stands and watches and waves. The roar of the crowd is deafening. Shades of gold are everywhere: attire, confetti, costumes, decorations—wherever she looks.

She thinks back to childhood days, when she was one of the crowd staring up at this balcony and the blurred distant face of the man who now stands beside her, at the boy who would become her escape.

This is where she will stand on her wedding day, waving to the crowds who have taken her into their hearts. This is where they will greet her as their future queen and mother to the next generation of rulers. They trust her to rule with grace and wisdom. They trust her to raise her children to do the same.

A flutter in her heart beats _what if— what if— what if_. She silences it. She cannot fail so many people. She cannot tell her people that all she has given them thus far are lies. They will not care that she was scared. They will only know that she should not have done what she did; it will not matter that she did not know what else to do. Pressure tightens her shoulders like a weight sitting on the back of her neck.

She can be a good queen. She will be a good queen. She is determined to rule well.

She smiles wider, waves more enthusiastically, tightens her hold on the prince's arm. She does not look to her left.

Her misery is her own making. She must come to terms with her impending marriage. She must accept that the hole into which she has dug herself is too deep to be scaled.

:::

The king holds out her chair and the cloth of his sleeve grazes her forearm.

The prince, celebrating the graduation of the next class of officers from the military academy, is absent at supper; she is given his usual seat beside the king. She is aware of every move of her neighbor's favored left arm, of how closely he keeps it pinned to his side, of its proximity at all times to her favored right hand.

Pale blue creeps into a yellow and pink sky. She waits with the prince in the calm quiet of the morning. The king greets them, strolling up to the veranda with soil on his chin and dirt outlining his fingernails. Breakfast waits for them on a long table; he adds apricots to a bowl of fruit. A leaf is caught in the curls above his eyes. She reaches up to pluck it away with achingly precise fingers that do not touch a strand of his hair.

He hands her down from a horse. Eyes cast down, she lets his gloved hands take her weight for the length of one breathless jump to the ground, then lets go with such haste that no impression lingers on her palms. Too hasty—she stumbles. Immediately his hand is there, firm against the small of her back, steadying her, gone just as quickly.

She stands in front of him during a ceremony and feels his gaze as heavy as the sun on her skin. He steps around her and collides with her skirt, briefly disarranging it—an occurrence hardly meriting a thought by anyone except for those keenly aware that even the slightest disruption of molecules is tangible proof of their existence here, of their lives in overlap, of his living breathing pulsing life in contact with hers. The cloth sways back into place with only the two of them the wiser.

:::

A brief reprieve: her living quarters are empty.

Her shoulders drop and her smile fades. She grips the back of a chair with both hands, tips her head back, breathes. Short, shallow breaths. She covers her face with her hands.

A large porcelain vase decorates the breakfast table. She hurls it at the fireplace. It smashes on the flagstones but the relief it provides is short-lived. When her maids return there is not a shard to be found.

:::

Every guest wears a mask: vivid, beautiful things that hide everything but the eyes. They whirl beneath chandeliers draped in silks of every color. The ballroom is so crowded with light and noise and movement that it cascades out through windows and doorways, flooding the halls and gardens beyond. It is a celebration, a night of joy, of hope for the future: the engagement ball.

She wears a gown of peacock feathers; the tips of the layers that form the bell of the skirt brush the ground as she rotates. Her arms are encased in fingerless black lace gloves that match her mask. He is in red—deep, lifeblood red; his mask is checkered gold and white diamonds. His eyes are fixed on hers.

They spin with the throng. His arm holds her flush to him. His thighs push against hers, leading her in the dance. Her forearm rests on his bicep; the muscles of his shoulder flex under her hand. His fingers press into the small of her back. Her thumb runs over the skin at his wrist just below the edge of his white glove.

:::

Their footsteps are loud on the bare floorboards. They walk through the rooms that are to be converted into the newlyweds' shared quarters. Carpenters are busy at work around them: hammers ring out and sawdust fills the air.

The double suites are in the midst of a complete overhaul, and the master builder is full of questions for their future occupants. He asks about doorway widths and mosaic tiles and cabinet handles. A headache throbs behind the bride-to-be's eyes. She speaks only when responses are demanded of her, leaving the discussion of window frames and approval of paint colors to the prince. Behind them, the king follows, silent.

:::

At dusk on the first day of summer, as is tradition, the resident nobility fan out across the foothills to collect the amber that has been carried down the mountain by the spring floods.

The mountainside is covered with small waterfalls that fall like curtains into its many waterways. The amber has settled in streambeds and rocky pools. Court attendants carry torches and lanterns, illuming the twilight so that the shining surfaces of the fossils will be visible. The lights dot the mountainside like oversized fireflies and transform the encroaching night into a welcome friend.

She is alone, and lanternless, and walking carefully over the slick rocks that fringe a waterfall pool, when he appears at the top of the bluffside path some way distant. They see each other at the same time.

He is alone as well, and carrying a lantern, and when he sees her he sets it down on the rock by his shoulder. She walks toward him quickly, her feet turning sure as soon as she is on the path, her eyes on his face. He is even faster, striding toward her with long legs unhindered by skirts, and it is not so dark yet that she cannot see that his eyes are likewise locked on hers.

He is eight steps away—five—three—and her hand has barely started to lift to reach for him when from the bluff above them an unseen voice calls to the king.

She slows. Briefly closes her eyes. Stops. She looks at him, an arm's length away. He doesn't look away from her as his mouth tightens, as it opens to call back, "Yes. I found her." More voices float down from the blufftop, the prince's unmistakable tones among them.

She looks at the king's shoulder, grips her skirts, and walks past him.

:::

Her bedroom is in chaos: soldiers everywhere one looks, two housemaids in tears, two more shouting questions, a table overturned, glass on the floor, the balcony door open to a disruptive night wind.

She is curled on her knees on the chaise beside the prince, who has his arms around her. He is telling her that this sort of thing tends to happen when one is royal, that there is an attempt on his life on a yearly basis, that the guards are well-trained and she has nothing to fear.

The king strides in, flanked by guards of his own. His eyes sweep the room and settle on her; the cold panic in them vanishes and is replaced with focused authority at the sight of his son.

He stands still in the middle of the room, the calm in the eye of the storm, while the handmaids' volume falls and rises, the soldiers call to each other, the chief of security briefs him, the wind sets embers flying out of the fireplace. She watches him: a slight frown between his eyes as he listens, jaw set. There is not a flicker on his face when he learns the assailants are still on the loose; he only nods once, then turns to follow the chief of security out of the room.

She grips the prince's arm. "Where are they going?" He assures her she is safe. Doesn't she see the guards? And he is armed—he shows her his sword and knife. No one will hurt her.

She has been instructed in no uncertain terms to stay where she is, surrounded by protectors, until given leave to leave the room. She has no desire to disobey. She has wondered about this moment many times, imagined the full gamut of bloodshed and exposure and victory and defeat, and now it seems she must wait with everyone else to learn how it concludes. And the king is out there in the halls with them.

She watches the clock until she stops shaking. Then she rouses the dozing prince and demands to see the king, demands until he caves and, despite the hour, leads her to the king's study with four guards in tow.

Night is making way for dawn but the king is awake, seated with his head resting on his fist. The chief of security sits in the chair across from him; both are clearly exhausted. Beyond the glass balcony doors, light creeps into the sky over the mountains' distant edges.

He is alarmed to see them. "What's wrong?"

The yawning prince informs him she was worried.

The chief of security tells her the security breach has been repaired and the threat neutralized. He provides the names of the assassins: three noblewomen, easily identified. Strangely, a family—a mother and her daughters. It will shock the city, as they are from a prominent house. Their motives will remain unknown; they fell to their deaths from a cliff-side rooftop as the soldiers were closing in to apprehend them. Jealousy is the most likely reason: the daughters had tried for the hand of the prince. He lists their names and asks her if she knows them. She tells him that she knows the names, certainly, but she did not move in the same circles as they. He does not ask if she knows why they might want her dead.

Her voice sounds distant and unfamiliar, thanking him automatically while her mind spins. The chief of security directs the prince to the desk across the room, on which rest the documents outlining the new security plan designed specifically for her safety. They cross the room to review them and she is left facing the king.

He indicates the two across the room. "Don't you want to inspect the plans?"

She shakes her head. "You're certain all three are dead?"

"Certain."

"Where are they?"

His eyes flicker, but he says, "The morgue. Near the dungeon."

She can feel his gaze on her skin like a touch; she can feel it all the way into her heart.

She says, "When they said the assassins were still on the loose I was afraid—"

"With good reason."

"—That you would be their next target. And then you didn't come back."

It is a moment before he speaks. "I am as you see me."

She can hear the prince approaching. All she manages is a nod. The prince is speaking, but she doesn't register his words; her eyes still rest on the king. He looks back at her steadily, unsmiling, his lips slightly parted, a look in his eyes she thinks she knows how to translate; then he turns to answer his son's bid good night. The rising sun crests the horizon and gold light streams across the wooden floor.

The prince escorts her to the room she will be living in until her chambers are repaired. They speak very little; he yawns every other step, and her mind is full. He deposits her at her door, into the hands of her waiting handmaids, who hustle her into bed. They are eager to sleep and vanish soon thereafter into the anteroom. As soon as they are all out of sight, she climbs out of bed and is sick into one of the topiaries on the balcony.

It isn't the ending she wanted, but she is not grieving.

:::

The orchard is small and walled. She has visited it many times before and enters now in quest of fruit. What she finds is the king, his coat gone, standing in the sunlit path, inspecting one of the trees. He turns at the sound of her arrival.

Her eyes flick around the space. There is no one there but the two of them. The door is at her back. She reaches behind her and slides the bolt home.

He is already striding toward her. All she can see are his eyes, the heat in them like burning gold.

Their mouths meet in a shudder of breaths, _finally_. The closeness of him clouds her thoughts and all she knows are sensations: his lips, warm and firm, moving against hers, locked to hers as though starved for her. His hands at her neck, her waist, her jaw, in her hair. The shaded stone wall cool against her back. Her heart racing, ecstatic. The tautness of his shoulders under the cloth of his shirt. His chest breathing fast against hers. The feel of him, the feel, the _feel_ of him. Breath mingling where their mouths meet. A small desperate sound in the back of her throat. The grip tightens. His tongue finds hers and her mind goes blank.

Time vanishing, time creeping back.

Slowing. His head drops to her shoulder. Her eyes stay closed. She is breathless, lightheaded; her heart pounds in her chest.

Kisses on the soft skin above her collarbone. Her name whispered like a caress. She threads her fingers through the hair at the base of his skull. His skin is flushed and warm.

His head lifts and his mouth searches for hers, presses another light kiss to her lips. His entire face shines with happiness; she tries to memorize it. She breathes in the scent of him. She will be glowing for the rest of the day.

It is an effort to speak the words, but—"I must return to the others," she says softly. "I came here for an orange."

He lets her go only long enough to link her fingers through his. They walk past the grapefruit and lemon trees to where the oranges grow.

She slips out through the door with one last look at him. They don't ruin it with words, but the knowledge is in his eyes and she knows it is in hers too. This can never happen again.

:::

The prince says he simply doesn't see why the king must leave _now_. The trip can wait until after the wedding. He ought to be here, helping with preparations and getting to know his future daughter-in-law.

According to the king, there couldn't be a better time for a visit to their northern neighbors. He will conduct a royal review of the northern province along the way. Summer trade is in full swing; crops are at their peak; the whole country is enthused about the wedding. He says, "I had best do it now, before you and your bride take a tour and they lose all interest in me," a joke the prince fails to see the humor in.

They see him off under a heavy sky that promises rain. By mutual choice she has barely seen him since the kiss in the orchard. Perhaps, with distractions gone, she will be able to find some common ground with the prince; perhaps they still have a chance at happiness.

She bids the king farewell dispassionately, extending her hand and speaking words of farewell that anyone might. She feels hollowed out. Her blood is slow in her veins. Her heart has turned to glass and been crushed on the flagstones beneath her feet.

Anyone who has not seen his burnt-gold eyes would think his face as expressionless as hers. He takes her hand to kiss it; his lips barely graze the skin. "Goodbye, my lady." He lets go of her hand and makes a fist with his.

He embraces his son, then mounts his horse and departs without a backward glance. Thirty soldiers, ten aides, and seven wagons follow him.

She grips her skirts and climbs to the parapet that overlooks the king's road. The company rides away as the clouds darken and the wind whips at the flags above her head.

:::

She knows the difference between making half an effort and truly laboring. She tries. With all that is in her she tries, for her sake and theirs, until she cannot endure it any longer. The reason she stayed is gone. The reasons she could not leave are dead. Truth peels like paint off the promise she made, leaving only the lies behind.

She says: "You deserve someone who loves you, and I don't."

The prince is white to the mouth. He wants to know why she accepted his hand. He wants to know why she deceived him.

How can she explain? It was a rescue. It was an escape. It was an incalculable mistake. He will not understand, so she stays silent.

He pleads with her. Perhaps she does love him, just doesn't know it. She does love him, this is her nerves talking. She will love him, just let him try to win her heart.

She walks out of the solarium, leaving him there on his knees with tears of devastation and fury on his face. She walks down the hall, into the servant's stairwell, through the lower corridors into the kitchen garden with the little blue gate in the wall.

She walks and walks and does not stop.

:::

The estate was regal once but has fallen into disrepair. There are no signs of life beyond the chickadees flitting from tree to tree. Fallen leaves crunch beneath approaching hooves.

The rider dismounts and leads the horse toward the main door, which turns out to be locked. An inspection of the nearby windows reveals a broken latch, and with some straining against the warped wood, he slides it open and swings inside.

Inside, the state is no better. A chandelier hangs haphazardly over the entry hall. Stained mirrors reflect cracked tiles and bubbling plaster. His boots leave footprints in the dust.

Each room contains more of the same. Creaking doors stir up dust and set sun-stained curtains fluttering. The house is furnished; there are still personal effects scattered here and there, as though the occupants intended to return instead of vanishing like ghosts. In the study he finds an old invitation to a ball at the palace.

Here is something warm and familiar: a well-worn kitchen. A jug of bright, blooming flowers sits in the center of the table. Windowpanes are missing and plants are attempting to gain entry through the cracks in the stucco, but the room is clean and a cheerful fire blazes in the hearth. There are vegetables and folded towels and a pail of milk.

As he stands in the entryway, the door to the back courtyard opens and she enters, shooing back chickens. Her braided hair is covered with an old piece of plaid. A wide apron covers her skirt, which is clean but faded, boasting patches and a fraying hem.

Her eyes widen at the sight of him. He strides forward, but her hands lift and push back against empty air. He halts but looks none too happy about it.

She says, "We can't. You know we can't, that's why you left."

He says, "What if there is a way?"

She says, "You won't hurt your son like this. Your son, your people, they will never forgive you. They'll call you selfish, and they'll be right."

He says, "There is always a way."

"They'll say I set my sights on the crown and when I found a faster way to it, I snatched it. They'll despise me for it and they'll despise you for allowing yourself to be taken in. This is where revolts start."

He strains against her invisible wall. She feels as though her heart is being pulled out of her chest toward his. She lowers her hands.

The next moment she is enveloped in the scent and warmth of him. Her fingers settle lightly on both sides of his neck, her thumbs on his cheeks, and her mouth meets his for a kiss that is slow and sweet and wrenching.

He softly kisses her jawline, kisses away the shining thread of liquid making its way down her cheek. "Is that a yes?" he whispers.

"How?" Of course she wants him. There cannot possibly be a chance for them, but his words spark a hope in her chest, and even brief hope is preferable to perpetual heartbreak.

"I've thought of a plan, unless you have something better in mind. It will require some patience, but I'm through doing nothing. I watched you slip through my fingers: I sat back and let all of it happen. Never again. I want to marry you immediately, today, before anything else can stop us. But for all the rest we shall have to wait. I won't hurt him if I can avoid it. Will you wait?"

She imagines a half-life with him, waiting for the the parceled hours he is able to steal away to her side. She imagines decades passing: enough time for him to grow old enough to abdicate to his son, and then he'll join her for good. She already knows her answer, and she would take him on any terms without question, but her heart wilts at the thought of separation for years piled upon years.

He reads her face and says: "Just long enough for him to marry. Let the waters calm. Then: come what may."

Oh, those warm eyes, that half smile. He is so handsome her heart aches. She traces his cheek and says, "You don't even know who I am."

"Would I be here if I didn't? I know who those assassins were, too." She gapes at him. He reaches into the satchel at his hip and pulls out a pair of wooden clogs. "You left these behind. Have you been missing them?"

"I have, actually." She isn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

"Someday I hope you'll trust me enough to tell me the whole truth of your life in this place." He cups her face and runs a thumb over her chin, smiling down at her. "For now it's enough to see expressions on your face instead of that unearthly control and accursed serenity."

"I don't want to lie anymore. I want everyone to know who I am and where I've come from."

"That was my hope."

"Will he forgive us? How can we ask that of him?"

"I believe he will. He has recently realized he is in love with the head librarian's daughter."

A slow smile spreads across her face. She remembers the pretty, prim librarian's assistant; she remembers thinking that in another life she would have made a friend of her.

"They've known each other since they were children. She knows all his tricks and won't accept so much as a glass bead from him. He is miserable now but he will welcome us into his good graces when he is happy, a great amount of which I hazard to predict is forthcoming. An engagement, a wedding, and a few months for the dust to settle: it shouldn't be more than a year at most. Can you wait a year?"

"Much longer," she says, "for you."

Then she lifts her face and kisses him, sweet and burning, and they spend a while like this, giving and taking in tandem, until her broken heart is made whole again and shifted into his chest, and his fills the vacancy.

"Can we go find a friar now?" he says. It is the first time she has seen him betray any impatience and she kisses him for it.

They'll need a witness, she reminds him.

No one can know their secret yet, he reminds her.

She only smiles.

:::

"I must say," says the lady in gold silk, who is perched on the edge of the loading dock, basking in a patch of sunshine while she watches the wagons trundle through the yard, "this isn't what I expected at all."

Her companion's dark head is bent over a dossier and she is scribbling numbers in a column. She murmurs a distracted agreement.

The lady says, "How long have you been planning this?"

The pencil is set down. The lady of the manor stretches her arms above her head and presses a hand to the small of her back. "There was a book in the castle library about the economics of poverty. That's where the idea started, and I thought it all out when I was walking back from the palace, but I didn't have any tools or machinery or workers. Until now."

Her godmother says, "You could have asked me, you know. You didn't have to do all this on your own."

"I've learned to be a bit more careful with my wishes. Besides, nothing worth having comes easy, does it?"

Wagons laden with pale new pineboards trundle into the yard. Where to for a lumber delivery? She directs the drivers to the stable breezeway. Sunshine pours generously into the yard; dappled shadows fringe the edges. The signet ring is warm from her finger, where it has settled into place as though she has worn it all her life long.

A year, give or take, he had said. He had suggested she take advantage of her independence while it lasted, said he would give her the means to travel abroad if she wished, which she thought was generous from a man whose marriage vows were minutes old, especially a man whose eyes grieved as he offered.

She had taken his hand in her newly-adorned one and led him through the house, her words painting over the decrepitude and throwing fresh color on the walls, polishing the floors, setting the glass panes shining. She had spread her hands and built invisible walls in place of standing ones. Under such a spell, the ballroom became the main workroom. The upstairs bedrooms, so many bedrooms, became dormitories and an infirmary. The breakfast and sewing rooms became storerooms, the library expanded into offices, the kitchen opened into a communal area. The rooms became populated with one-legged soldiers and unwed mothers, parentless children and escapees like herself. The house had filled with the scent of leather, of glue, of wood block shavings.

Her vision was simple: those who came to the manor would be taught to make shoes—but at heart it was much more. The manor would be a sanctuary. It would offer a future to those in bad situations who had no money and nowhere to go, for those whose veins ran with fire and fervor and only needed a way to get on their feet. The dusty rooms stood ready, their echoes seeming to say _All is nearly ready. The builders will come. The cleanse will begin._

His voice was quiet. "We wouldn't have thrown you out. We wouldn't have sent you back."

She knew that now. She knew a good many things now that never occurred to her when she took her first step into the palace all those months ago.

"Where do you sleep?" he had asked.

She had looked up then, into his burning eyes. She had tightened her grip on his hand and led him to the little sunlit storage room off of the kitchen where an upstairs mattress was neatly made up; and after that she did not think of the future for some time.

Now the little storage room is full of shoe designs and stitching thread. He has brought her books about sanctuary ordinances and orphans' rights. They have discussed different approaches to training and income. She has met with her father's financier and unsealed the fortune her mother left her. Wagons roll in and out of the yard every hour, and the ring of hammers and shouts of carpenters can be heard from dawn til dusk.

Soon the construction will cease and new noises will fill the house: the chatter of workers, the hammer of much smaller nails, the tugging of stitches, the stretching of leather. Word of the manor will weave through back alleys and into kitchen cellars, sparking hope like a candle in the dark.

A load of linen curtains arrives and she returns to her dossier to add to the columns of numbers within. Her companion dozes on the dock. Golden glints drift through the air. With the wagons gone, the yard is peaceful, disturbed only by the buzz of bees and the distant drone of a saw near the stable. A breeze teases the lilies that grow along the side of the house and sets their heads swaying.

The pencil stills; her head lifts.

A moment later, a tall man with copper-gold hair rounds the corner. He is carrying a pair of tree shears and smiles wide at the sight of her.

She meets him halfway across the yard and leans up to kiss him. "You smell like honeysuckle."

"Listen." He raises his shears in the direction of the palace. In the far distance, bells are pealing.

She lights up. "She said yes!"

"You'll have a sister soon."

"Yes." Her smile falters as her stomach knots, and her eyes drop to his shoulder.

"A crown, too."

She can feel his eyes on her face. "Yes."

This short-lived idyll is ending. The bright, gasping joy that has so recently become her life will soon give way to uncertainties and restraint. There is no knowing how the people will react to their king's choice of a bride, or how much this might hurt the prince regardless of his current happiness. How can they take her back into their hearts? How can she forego this peace and simplicity for unfamiliar pomp and splendor? How can she step forward into the future when she does not know what waits for her there?

He drops his head down to hers. His words are quiet in her ear. "If you don't want this."

All the fear sighs out of her heart in an instant. What is she afraid of? He will be there.

She lifts her hand to run her thumb along his cheekbone. "It's a small price to pay to have you."

His eyes are as warm as sun-baked earth. "He will forgive us because he loves me. They will forgive us because he will. I will teach you everything you need to know. The parts that matter you already possess." He lays his hand over her heart. "You will love our people. And they will love you."

She kisses his cheek. "What about you?" she says. "Did anyone ever ask if you want this? What do you want? What would you wish for?"

He tucks her hair behind her ear. "I wished for you."

She slides her arms around his waist and holds tight. He wraps his arms around her and presses his lips to her hair. She can feel the steady beat of his heart inside his chest. She can feel the warmth of his body through his shirt and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. They listen to the distant pealing bells and the bees and the saw and the hammers and the clock inside the front hall calling out twelve o'clock noon.

It is a beautiful day and the future is bright.


End file.
